AN: Happy Sunday friends! I had my act together and edited yesterday, which means that you get two chapters today! Probably only because chapter four is shorter, but you know. You don't get stuck with a cliffhanger now!

Enjoy!

They got into the city, as they had predicted, a bit too early for lunch, but by the time they were able to find a nice place to park that was near the river it was far closer to a reasonable lunch hour.

Lily's heart was still racing a bit faster than normal as they got out of the car and started down the concrete. James was whistling now, and she didn't know what that meant. How could someone go from being so pale and blushy to being so carefree and musical? What was it exactly that had changed his mood?

He wasn't really that relieved that Lily hadn't shot him down so long ago for lack of feelings, was he?

Or perhaps he was hung up on the 'what ifs' still. He had never spelled out for her what exactly he thought would be different if she had said yes when he'd asked her out. But he'd seemed awfully certain about whatever it was that he was keeping to himself.

Lily focused on the tips of her shoes and the cracks in the sidewalk to keep herself from just staring at James' happy face while they walked toward the shops and restaurants. She stayed close to him so that they could maneuver the crowd effectively, but she made sure that they didn't accidentally bump into one another.

She clenched her jaw and wondered where this sudden shyness had come from. Lily was a lot of things, but shy was not one of them. But some of those what if questions were getting to her. What if she hadn't thought it was all just s joke to him in year eleven? What if they had laid out on their respective roofs and laughed about how dumb they had both been-

"Is it against the rules to go into a sweets shop before going to lunch?" James asked, pausing in his whistling to pull her out of her head.

She blinked up at him, surprised by his question because it was so far from what she'd been thinking about. "Um… I don't know. It might be, but fuck societal norms, yeah?" It was slightly stilted, but James didn't seem to notice and threw his head back laughing. Lily shook her head and looked forward again, searching for the shop that would have sparked James' question.

"Fuck societal norms." James shoved a hand in his pocket. "And my mum always thought you'd be a good influence on me. I'm telling her that you gave me permission to have dessert first. Because she'll know somehow. She always knows."

"Well, she's a spy," Lily crossed her arms over her chest and glanced over at him again. "It's safe to assume that she has a network of other spies working for her. They probably follow you around and report back to her."

"What a horrifying thought. Thank you for that, Evans." James ran a hand through his hair and looked around as though he was considering which of the patrons around them could have been working for his mother's not-so-secret spy organization.

"It's what I'm here for." Lily grinned, and then spotted the small sweets shop on the street up ahead. It was just after eleven in the morning, so there weren't many people going in and out of the shop, or perhaps there was another reason that the shop wasn't all that busy. Lily wasn't an expert on when people did their confectionary shopping.

"Yeah, Lily Evans is here to break the rules and tell people to do whatever they want." James teased, "That sounds right to me."

She tilted her head to the side and looked up at him again, still feeling her heart pounding in her chest. James was such a dork. Too attractive for his own good, but still a dork. She really shouldn't be nervous around him for any reason at all.

Her heart continued to pound though.

"I'll have you know, that where chocolate or pastry is involved, there are no rules that I'm not willing to break." He laughed again and she smiled at him.

"Right, for sugar, you will break the rules."

"I will pretend that they don't exist." She agreed.

He held the door open for her and they walked in.

Lily took a deep breath and felt herself relax as the smell of warm sugar and chocolate overcame her senses.

She carefully walked into the shop and started inspecting the treats around the shelves and bakery cases. Everything looked perfectly crafted and absolutely delicious.

"What are you in the mood for?" James asked, his voice quiet and close. She looked over to find him leaning in. The quiet of the shop and the cozy feeling must have made him think he couldn't talk at a normal volume. Lily felt the same way.

"Everything." She said honestly, a small smile on her lips. He grinned back at her and then stood up straighter and waved to someone behind the counter that Lily hadn't noticed until then.

"What can I get you two?" The man asked. He looked as Lily thought he should, shorter, round, and jolly. If she worked in a confectionary shop, she would be round and jolly too.

"Do you have a variety pack? A sampler of some kind?" James leaned on the case and looked down at the treats.

"You tell me what looks good to you, and I'll get you a bit of everything." The man smiled at them. "We'll build you a sampler."

"Thank you, sir." James grinned, pushing his glasses up his nose before he turned back to Lily. "Well go ahead, fill up a box."

Lily chewed on her tongue for a moment, trying to gauge whether or not he was making fun of her, but then the man behind the counter pulled out a box and James stepped back so she could look everything over and she no longer cared if he was teasing, because she just wanted to get some of these sweets in her hands. And then into her belly.

They left the shop with more than just the sampler box. James found a mint tea candy that his mother loved, and some black liquorish jellies that he swore Remus would love, even though they made Lily turn up her nose.

"We'll be back later," James called over his shoulder as they walked out the door. Lily waved and then looked at the bags that James was carrying.

"I could have paid for my own. I can also carry it." She'd waited until they were out of the shop to argue with him.

"Of course," He nodded, though he made no move to hand her the bag. "But I dragged you out to the city for the day, so I'll be doing the paying and the carrying."

Lily clicked her tongue and blinked up at him. "Careful, or I'll find something very large and heavy for you to pay for and then lug around all day."

James just laughed and started down the street again. Lily had no choice but to follow him since he had all the chocolate that she wanted to eat.

He was already seated at a bench facing the water when she caught up with him and was pulling the sampler out of the bag. "What are you going to eat first?" He asked as she took a seat next to him. He took the lid off and inspected the candies that she'd picked out. He pulled his leg up on the bench so that he could face her completely.

"I don't know." She said honestly, reaching out and letting her fingers dance over the different chocolates. She stopped on one that had coconut and almonds. She took a small bite and closed her eyes to savor the flavor. "Mm, if they're all this good I think I'm going to move into the shop."

He laughed and took the candy from her hand while her eyes were still closed. "Hey!" She opened them and turned to see him taking a bite. She froze for a moment. "I didn't realize we were sharing."

"You can't say that something is 'move to London to live in a small shop' good and not expect me to want to try it." He handed it back to her and nodded. "But you're right. That is damn good, and we'll need to get more."

"You told him that we'd be back." Lily said, doing her best not to feel weird about sharing a piece of candy with James. She put the rest of it in her mouth and tried to distract herself with the taste, but James had just taken a bite from the same piece and that ended up distracting her from the taste.

Tragic, and stupid really.

It felt like a date.

She realized that after a few more shared candies. The smiling and him holding doors and bags and buying her candy. He had said yesterday that it wasn't a date, and that had felt true enough when she had gotten into the car, but then they talked about how they'd both fancied each other five years ago, and now it felt like a date.

And she was quite sure that he was doing it on purpose.

Now she was antsy.

She didn't want to just sit here on the bench and continue to eat candies that she couldn't fully appreciate because James was distracting her. She felt like she needed to get up and move. And without a plan, she jumped to her feet.

"Let's go and walk along the river for a bit." She said. "I used to watch the boats come in with my great aunt."

James didn't mention how she'd jumped off the bench, he just put the candies back in the bag and stood up. "Lead the way," He motioned for her to head in the direction she wanted to go in and then fell into step beside her. "Was that the aunt that would come and stay with your family during the summers?"

"Yeah," Lily nodded. "Aunt Maggie. She was a pretty interesting person. She lived next door to my gran, her sister. I always thought it would be neat to live next to my sister." She was speaking in stilted sentences, she could hear it, but she couldn't stop herself. She had just realized that walking along the river wasn't any less date-like than sharing candies on the bench. "But then, you know…" She trailed off.

"Petunia isn't girl-next-door material." James offered, stating in the nicest way possible that Petunia was rotten and terrible. She'd gotten married before she'd even finished uni, and then she'd dropped out. That wasn't why she was terrible, Lily knew plenty of nice girls who got married young and didn't finish or attend school. But when Lily had asked her why she seemed to be in such a hurry to grow up, her response had been that she was tired of having to see Lily so often.

Of course, she'd said plenty of things that shouldn't have led Lily to be surprised at her response, but then Lily had been passed over on being a bridesmaid for a distant cousin, and Petunia hadn't let her bring a date, nor did she take any pictures with her.

Why had she brought up her sister? This wasn't a better topic to think about than the weirdness that was going on between her and James. Now she was anxious over the fact that she'd probably have to see Petunia soon, that she was going to make snide comments about how Lily's previous relationship had ended before it could amount to anything 'real.'

Apparently, she didn't consider year and half long relationships real if they didn't build to a marriage proposal. As far as Petunia was concerned, Lily had wasted all that time.

"In your head?" James asked, switching the bags from one hand to the other, so the hand closest to her was now empty. Was he going to try and hold her hand? Or had he noticed the bags bump her leg?

"I'm always in my head," Lily sighed, reaching up and rubbing her hands over her face and pushing her hair back. "It's exhausting."

James chuckled and she saw him rake his hand through his hair out of the corner of her eye. "What's got you in your head now?"

"I mentioned my sister. It made me think about her wedding and how awful she was to me. And then that made me think of my ex, who she didn't let me bring to her wedding and how awful she was after we broke up."

"She is not afraid to share her opinions." Again, he was putting it mildly and she laughed. "And before that?" James asked, because of course he'd noticed how weird she'd been when they were eating the candies that she'd been so excited about.

Lily sighed. Should she rip off the band aid? It might ruin the rest of the day. Currently, if she got out of her head, it was still salvageable. And even if they left now, they still had an hour-long car ride to get through. She chewed on her lip and then looked at him, decided on a half-truth. "You bought all the candies."

James looked at her, stopping in the middle of the concrete. "Yes." Lily pulled his arm and led them to the edge of the concrete when an elderly couple huffed behind them. "Lily, I told you that I was going to pay because this entire trip was my idea."

"And I understand that, but it's just weird."

"Why is it weird?"

"I don't know how to explain it to you," She said, trying to think of a good example. "I guess it's partially weird because I don't have a job right now," And then her cheeks were red, both because that hadn't been the reason she meant to give, and because this was a sore spot for her. "And it doesn't really look as though I'll have a job soon. Not a real job anyway."

"All the more reason for me to treat you," He said, and she knew that it wasn't a big deal to him. She knew that he was going to try and make her feel as though she was making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Or she thought she knew that, but then he went on.

"Look, I didn't buy you the candy because I didn't think that you could buy it yourself. You made it quite clear that you were going to get something in that shop, if not trick the owner into handing you the keys." Lily pressed her lips together to suppress a grin. "And it's easy for me to do nice things for my friends when the nice things involve money, because my dad got lucky with his stupid hair care product and we have more money than we could ever need. I spend it on other people to help ease the guilt that comes with not having worked for the things that you have."

Lily chewed on her lip again. "You shouldn't feel guilty." What a dumb response.

"And you shouldn't feel bad about not having a job straight out of college. Shall we state some more obvious truths?"

Lily almost stomped her foot. "Of course, I feel bad about it! I didn't want to have to move back in with my mum. And I didn't want to feel jealous when I see all my friends from school posting about their new jobs that they got in their chosen field."

"Okay, and I can't stop feeling guilty about the money thing. Even saying that makes me feel like an absolute git." His hand was back in his hair.

"I feel behind." Lily admitted, crossing her arms over her chest. She was being more honest with him than she wanted to, though she was admitting a different truth, it was still a truth. A truth that she hadn't talked about with anyone else yet. Well, except Mary of course.

"That's only because you're brilliant, have been your entire life, and you're not ahead of everyone else anymore. But that doesn't mean you're behind. There's not some timeline that you're supposed to be following, so it's impossible for you to be behind, Evans." She considered what he'd said for a moment quietly, chewing on the tip of her tongue now.

"I suppose." She said at length.

"Anything else on your mind?" He grinned, tilting his head at her and making her heart jump in her chest like it used to do when they were kids. How dumb. All he had to do was look at her and she was dealing with her heart jumping all over the place again.

"Yeah," She braced herself and decided to be brave. "Are you sure you didn't buy the candies because you wanted this to feel more like a date?"